Cong blasts UP govt on power projects

The state Congress on Sunday said that the Mulayam Singh Yadav government had been misleading the people on the establishment of power projects in the state.

The announcements were only on paper and the government had not been able to install even a single power project during the last three years.

UPCC spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh said the Yadav government had announced the Dadri gas-based project of Reliance with all fanfare three years ago. But the project had failed to come up. He said repeating its old record, the government had now announced three more power projects.

Singh said people were grossly misled on the Dadri project and now three more projects had been added to the list. He said the fate of these projects might not be different from Dadri, as the government was not sincere in solving the power crisis. He said the government was only interested in "selling dreams to the people" of the state.

Singh said once again in the election year the Yadav government had been befooling the people.

He said by keeping the Dadri agreement under wraps, the government had created suspicion over the project. He said the government had given 2500 acre of prime land to Reliance Energy Limited (REL) at a throwaway price. Singh said the SP leaders had been carrying on a campaign against the centre for not providing gas to Dadri project but REL promoter Anil Ambani had been keeping mum over the issue.

He said the project work had so far not started at the site. Referring to power production in the state Singh said of the total generation capacity only 50 per cent power was being produced at present and power distribution loss was around 40 per cent. He said the centre had been providing 3000 MW power per day to the state from the central grid. He said around Rs 1500 to Rs 2000 crore was pending on 200 defaulters and power theft had assumed serious dimensions under official patronage.